imperfect (26 page)

My hair must’ve started to
grow out if my natural hair color is showing at the roots.
“Yeah. I might have to re-dye it
soon.”

“
I like your hair dark
brown. It matches your personality more.”

“
You haven’t even known me
for a week and you’re already judging my personality. And it’s up
to me to decide whether I re-dye my hair or not.”

There must’ve been a bite to her tone
because Troop pretended to shield himself from her verbal attack.
“Whoa, no need to get all fired up.”

Kristi made an exasperated sound and moved
Flurry into a slightly faster speed to get ahead of Troop. To her
aggravation, Troop didn’t seem to get the message she wanted to get
away from him because he followed close behind.

“
Have you ever heard of
personal space?” she said out of the corner of her
mouth.

“
Have you heard of being
friendly?”

“
Just leave me alone, will
you?”

“
You’re upset that Chelsa
and Jaiden aren’t including you now that they’ve both been hit by
Cupid’s arrows, aren’t you?”

“
I’m upset because a
certain twerp won’t leave me alone!” Kristi exclaimed a little too
loudly.

Jaiden turned around and looked back at
them. “Is everything alright? Kristi, I hope you’re not arguing
with Troop again.”

“
He’s the one that started
the argument,” Kristi said under her breath, but Jaiden heard it
anyways.

“
Be nice,” he reprimanded
her, then turned around once more to talk to Chelsa.

Don’t tell me what to
do,
Kristi bitterly thought to
herself.

chapter
twenty-seven

[ Kristi ]

“
To be honest, I’m
surprised the government hasn’t tracked you
down yet,” Troop said.

“
Why? Do you want us to
get caught?” Kristi asked.

“
No. I’m just surprised
that there has been no sign of the government searching for you if
you guys are wanted.”

“
What about the posters?
Or the news-screens?” She challenged. “And we also almost got
caught by the Homeland Security Helicopters before you joined
us.”

“
Fair enough,” Troop said.
“But I’ve seen what the government is capable of when they’re
hunting someone down. It’s almost as if the government is allowing
you to escape from them.”

Kristi shook her head in disbelief. “Why
would they do that?”

“
You’re right. My theory
doesn’t make sense. I guess I’m over thinking matters.”

Kristi squinted off into the distance about
a hundred ahead. There seemed to be something big lying on the side
of the road. “Chelsa, what’s that object up ahead?”

“
Seems like some sort of
vehicle that’s been turned over.”

As they neared the vehicle, Kristi could
make out that it was an overturned merchant’s truck. The truck’s
windows were shattered and the inside looked like it had been
ransacked. There was no doubt this was bandit work. She didn’t want
to think about what happened to the poor driver.

“
Is anyone in the truck?”
Kristi asked.

She wasn’t too eager to see a dead body.

Jaiden dismounted from his horse, approached
the truck and peered inside the front cabin. “It’s empty.”

“
Let’s go,” Troop and
Kristi said in unison.

“
Creepy,” Kristi
said.

“
What’s creepy?” Troop
asked.

“
The truck. It’s giving me
the chills.”

The broken headlights of the truck seemed to
implore her not to abandon it. One of the wheels spun crazily when
a stiff breeze blew through. A loud bang startled her. The wind had
slammed closed the passenger door of the truck.

Kristi reined Flurry to the fractured
windshield. A rust colored substance stained the edge of the
cracks. Deeply unsettled, Kristi backed her mount away from the
vehicle. A soft, guttural growl grinded out from beneath the
truck.

“
Ride!” Kristi gasped,
wheeling Flurry around.

A creature erupted from beneath the truck.
It looked like a hyena, but had a scaly tail and two terrible
looking horns protruding from the top of its head. Its back had a
spiny ridge running down it.

“
What
is
it?” Jaiden said.

“
Some sort of messed up
hyena?” Kristi guessed.

More of the demonic hyena hybrids emerged
from beneath the truck. Everyone launched into a frantic gallop
away from the creatures.

Chelsa spared a glance backwards and cursed.
“They’re devil-dogs—government created creatures that shouldn’t be
out of the lab. They’re afraid of water. So keep your eyes out for
any streams or lakes”

The devil-dogs were fast for their size and
matched the droid-horses’ speed easily, waiting for the
droid-horses to start faltering before coming in for the kill.
Spittle trailed from their curled lips

Kristi did not want to die this way.

“
Can the horses outrun the
devil-dogs?” She tapped her heels against Flurry’s side, requesting
more speed.

“
Probably, but the
devil-dogs will follow our scent. They’re built for endurance,”
Chelsa replied.

“
Storm clouds.” Troop
pointed to the right. “I think there’s a storm coming from that
direction.”

“
How convenient. Ride
towards the clouds. The rain should deter the
devil-dogs.”

Kristi crouched even lower on Flurry and
asked her to run even faster. Flurry responded and her hooves
caused so much friction against the ground that sparks sprayed
where she landed.

“
Flurry’s going to
overheat,” warned Troop.

“
I know,” said Kristi.
“There’s not much I can do about it.”

A devil-dog howled and the pack began to
chase after them in earnest. The dogs were no longer simply
stalking then; they were attacking. A devil-dog came dangerously
near Flurry and snapped at her legs.

“
Scram!” Kristi yelled.
“Get away!”

She kicked the devil-dog away with her
foot.

The storm clouds were about a quarter mile
away. A quarter mile had never felt so far away in her life. Flurry
let out a scream when a devil-dog pounced onto her back. The
devil-dog bared his fangs at Kristi. Saliva dripped down his teeth
like acid.

Wait…the devil-dog’s
saliva
was
acid.
Where the saliva touched Flurry’s fur, the area hissed and the fur
dissolved before Kristi’s eyes, leaving behind a smooth spot of
metal. This was a nightmare come true.

Kristi clubbed the devil-dog off Flurry’s
back with the help of her backpack. The creature landed in a
mangled heap.

I think it’s dead.

The devil-dog raised its head and pulled
back its lips at Kristi.

Never mind.

Her skin burned and she looked down to her
arm. A single drop of acidic saliva from a devil-dog had eaten
through her clothing and burned her skin. A little circle of
darkened skin was branded onto her forearm.

Kristi risked a quick look over her
shoulder, trusting Flurry not to run them into a tree or whatever.
Roughly ten devil-dogs remained, and none of them seemed to be
tiring.

The sky flashed and a jagged line of
lighting discharged from the clouds. The atmosphere hummed with
static electricity. A drumroll of thunder followed the lightning
and a raindrop hit Kristi’s cheeks. She almost groaned with
relief.

“
Thank goodness,” she said
and the rain came down harder.

The droplets hit the devil-dogs’ fur,
causing them to yip in pain and terror. Whilst the devil-dog’s
saliva burned through Flurry’s fur, the water burned through the
devil-dogs’ pelt. As a pack of one, the devil-dogs retreated,
looking for a place to shelter from the rain.

“
Do you guys want to ride
on or stop for the night?” Chelsa asked.

“
I say we ride on,” Troop
said. “We’re already wet enough, so we might as well continue on
through the rain.” The rain came down in sheets, as if agreeing to
his words.

Troop consulted UnivMaps and led them back
to South Lane.

“
How did you know that
devil-dogs hated water? I’ve never seen a devil-dog before in my
life until today,” said Jaiden.

“
Secret source,” Chelsa
said.

“
Fine, be like that,”
Jaiden teased back.

Kristi shivered beneath her layers of soaked
clothes. She wished she had put on her waterproof jacket. She
considered rummaging through her backpack for her jacket, but
decided against it since it would be difficult to do so while
riding in rainy weather at the same time.

“
Do you want my jacket?”
Troop offered as if reading her mind.

“
No thanks.”

Her chattering teeth sent
the opposite message, but there was no way she was going to accept
help from Troop; it was just going to indulge his ego which
did
not
need to
be inflated any more than it already was.

Troop took off his jacket anyways and held
it out to her. Kristi ignored the offering and tried her best to
calm her shivers.

“
You’re going to catch a
cold,” Troop said.

“
You can’t catch a cold
from being wet,” said Kristi

“
You can catch a cold from
being cold.”

“
Wrong. You can catch a
cold from contracting the virus.”

Troop didn’t say anymore but the expression
he gave Kristi plainly said he thought she was being overly
stubborn. And maybe she was, but Kristi wanted to keep her distance
from Troop. He reminded her too much of Glenn: smooth and nice on
the outside but full of barbs and thorns on the inside.

“
I think we should stop,”
Chelsa said half an hour later. “It’s getting pretty dark and we
don’t want the horses to trip over something in the
darkness.”

The rain tapered off and came down more
gently. Jaiden and Troop set up the tent while Chelsa and Kristi
unloaded the saddlebags from the horses.

“
I think I’m going to
sleep. I’m too exhausted to have dinner,” Kristi said.

All of her muscles cramped. Even though
Kristi knew she was probably going to have yet another fitful night
of rest, her body physically needed to sleep even though her mind
protested against the thought of enduring another night of
horrors.

She was flying. She
had
morphed into a dove and was soaring
far above the world. The land spread out before her like a quilt.
However, Kristi felt like she was being pursued by something,
something evil. She shot down towards the ground, trying to escape
the feeling of being chased.

The sound of birdcalls filled the air.
Bright, flashy tropical birds surrounded Kristi the dove. The
flamboyant birds—toucans, macaws, and parakeets—screamed out harsh
cries. Kristi landed on the ground and hopped towards the cover of
a bush, but a large peacock poked its head into her hiding place
and she half flapped, half hopped back out into the open. Acting as
one flock, the other birds surrounded and attacked her.

The wings, talons and beaks of the showy
birds battered her fragile dove body. A fiery pain shot up her
right wing when a swan slammed its powerful wings into her. She lay
on the cold, hard ground, right wing throbbing excruciatingly. A
bird with a broken wing was a dead bird. She was a bird with a
broken wing. She was a dead bird.

Kristi awoke. Strangely,
she wasn’t sweating nor was her heart beating at overtime.
I must be getting used to these
nightmares,
she thought, stepping outside
of the tent.

It was only six-thirty in the morning.
Streaks of purple could be discerned among the horizon in the dark
sky if she looked close enough. Kristi searched around the camp and
found Troop to be the only person around.

“
Jaiden and Chelsa went to
gather some kindling that hasn’t been dampened by last night’s
rain,” Troop said when he saw her hunting for them.

“
What else is new,” Kristi
mumbled. “We don’t even usually make a fire in the
morning.”

Troop didn’t grace her with an answer, which
Kristi was completely fine by.

“
I need to go refill my
water bottle,” she said. “Do you need yours refilled?” she added in
a moment of generosity.

“
Thanks, but no
thanks.”

“
Be back in
ten.”

She searched for a water source, making sure
to always keep the tent in sight. Her boots made sucking noises in
the oozy mud. Kristi crinkled her nose. An
almost-but-not-quite-familiar scent reached her nose. The smell
wasn’t unpleasant—in fact, it reminded Kristi of home. Squatting
down, she combed the ground until she found the source of the
fragrance. Rainflowers. Well, not quite. The flowers looked
identical to rainflowers except they were orange instead of
purple.

Kristi caught sight of a small creek cutting
a course through the land and filled up her bottle to the brim. She
had a few minutes before she needed to return back to the tent, so
she chose to spend her extra time admiring the sunrise by the
creek.